Another mysterious death of a Russian oligarch - rumors about secret service contacts
Created: 11/30/2022 11:03 am
By: Stephanie Munk
Another Russian oligarch died and many questions remain unanswered: the billionaire Vyacheslav Taran crashed his helicopter near Monaco.
Monaco - "Helicopter Crash: Passenger Identified" reads the headline of a report in the
Monaco Daily News
on Sunday (November 26).
It can be read: The victim of a helicopter crash two days earlier was the Russian crypto billionaire Vyacheslav Taran, who had lived in Monaco for ten years.
The 53-year-old is a father of three and his wife Olga is the editor of Hello Monaco
magazine
.
A close family friend would describe Taran as "the nicest person alive," the article continues.
Taran is the next Russian oligarch to lose his life under rather mysterious circumstances.
The 53-year-old took off by helicopter from Lausanne, Switzerland on Friday afternoon (November 24), writes
Monaco Daily News
.
A 35-year-old, well-trained pilot was at the wheel.
Nevertheless, the helicopter later crashed near Monaco, a good 500 kilometers away.
Both Taran and the pilot died.
Russian oligarch Vyacheslav Taran died in a helicopter crash.
© imago stock&people
Circumstances of the crash puzzling - apparently another passenger jumped off shortly before
"It is not yet possible to provide any information about the cause of the accident," the report also says.
The Russian state news agency Tass also reported on the death of the oligarch, who was active in the field of cryptocurrency and is the founder of the trading platform Libertex and the company Forex Club.
According to a report in the British newspaper
Daily Mail
, the weather on the day of the crash was good and the sky was cloudless.
It is also puzzling that another person who was on the passenger list canceled the flight at short notice.
This was reported by the local press.
Investigations into the crash are currently underway, the newspaper further informed.
According to the deputy public prosecutor in Nice, the fault of third parties cannot be ruled out.
Death of a Russian oligarch - did he have ties to the secret service?
Taran is originally from Vladivostok, Russia.
As the British newspaper
Mirror
writes, the Ukrainian news agency Unian claims that the 53-year-old "probably had connections to the Russian foreign intelligence service".
This has not yet been proven.
According to Unian, he allegedly laundered Russian funds through various cryptocurrency operations.
The Russian Telegram channel Marat Bashirov - supporter of the Ukraine war - is said to have described the accident as a "clean-up operation" without further explaining it.
The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope
View photo gallery
also read
Putin companion throws up after 25 years – new position shows how much sanctions hit Russia
"Perversion": According to Pope Francis, Lavrov's spokeswoman rages about Putin's "cruelest" troops
Third crypto billionaire to die within weeks
Taran is also the third crypto billionaire to die under mysterious circumstances in the past few weeks,
according to the
Daily Mail .
Tiantian Kullander, 30, from Singapore, died inexplicably in his sleep on Thursday (November 23) - one day before Taran's crash.
And the 29-year-old American Nikolai Mushegian drowned in the sea in Puerto Rico the week before - a few hours after he wrote on Twitter that he felt persecuted by the CIA.
Since the start of the Ukraine war, mysterious deaths of Russian oligarchs have increased.
At least seven businessmen died this year under sometimes questionable circumstances - they all had connections to the Russian energy company Gazprom.
(smu)
